In the silent night with nothing alive in sight, the helicopter landed on the top of a destroyed tall building on a barely intact helipad.
The group soon disembarked and Evelyn took them to the edge of the roof.
"That's the nest." – She pointed at a place a few kilometers away.
The others looked at where she was pointing at and their jaws almost dropped.
The small nest Evelyn had spoken of earlier was a hole of around a hundred of meters in diameter with a sickly pale green color that emitted an ominous light in the night.
However, what caught anyone's attention were the bug-like monsters walking around the place and crawling out of the hole from time to time.
"That's small?" – Darlan asked with incredulity. His question was everyone's.
"Yeah. It might look big at first glance but this nest is stipulated to have around 20.000 bugs at most. A small number compared to your average nest at the frontline which is around 1.000.000 or so." – Evelyn's words shocked them even more. The more they heard, the more absurd things sounded.
"By the way, this is a practical exercise so you can have a taste of what the frontlines are like." – She smiled and most of the group shuddered. In the past week they got used to the fact that whenever Evelyn smiles, she doesn't mean anything good. And their bad omen was swiftly confirmed – "The senior combatants will arrive in 20 minutes. Until then, I expect you all to have at least cleaned the surface." – Her smile widened a little seeing their reactions – "I will be there if something happens. Now, time to work." – Her eyes glanced at everyone and she noticed that Akihiko was gone, however, she was used to his style of doing things.
"Ms. Evelyn, isn't it too much to clean up the surface in just 20 minutes?" – Lathz questioned. The place where they were looked to be the ruins of a remote village or an isolated small city. There were hundreds bugs all around the place, and clearing the whole place with only 10 people would probably take more than 20 minutes since they might also have to fight against reinforcement from the nest, which kept spewing bugs even as they talked.
"Actually, we're being quite generous with the time. Normally, you would have 10 minutes at best, and 5 or 3 in the normal cases." – Her words stunned the group even more.
Each time they heard something about the frontlines, it was something absurd that went against their common sense. They were flustered and didn't react until someone clapped.
Turning to the source of the noise, they saw Akihiko doing some hand signals.
Beatrix was quick to recover and as the only one who could understand him, started to translate – "He sa-said that we need to organize ourselves and divide the area into sections. H-He also asked Lathz to take the leadership."
Upon hearing this, the others woke up from their trance and Lathz immediately nodded.
Akihiko formed four talismans in between his fingers and threw them at the ground, then he made some strange hand gestures that Beatrix couldn't understand.
However, as he did the last gesture, the talismans lit up and burst into a small show of light which grouped together and formed a map of the surroundings.
"Woah…" – The group was amazed by it since they never heard of such a thing.
"You went scouting?" – Evelyn asked, referring to when he vanished earlier.
Akihiko nodded and relaxed his hands.
The group approached the map and saw that it was a simple map without too many details aside from the streets and buildings depicted in it.
He did some hand signals and Beatrix translated – "He said that he couldn't get much since he had little time and has trouble with visual details." – Through the week, the group got to know each other better and some even became friends in such a short time. And while he always keeps things to himself, the others also get to know a bit more about Akihiko, and one of the things is the fact that his vision is really bad.
"There's no problem, this is more than enough." – Nyza shook her head. As an assassin herself, she knew how valuable little details were, and the map Akihiko presented to them was more than enough to come up with strategies.
"Nyza is right, thank you, Akihiko." – Lathz thanked him and received a short nod as a reply. Then, she turned her gaze to the map and started to make plans in her mind – "I think we should start by…"
And so, 5 minutes were spent in making a plan to clean up the surface before the group divided themselves and each went to their designated section.
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*Shriek*
*Shriek*
Standing in the shadow of a pillar, Akihiko sneaked around a group of five spiders the size of a car.
He lightly flickered his wrist and three shurikens appeared between his fingers.
Noticing that the spiders weren't alert, he threw the shurikens at the spiders, and when he released them, taking advantage of the momentum, he pushed his hand a bit close to its back before bringing his hand back, which now contained two other shurikens, and throwing them.
Without time to even react, the spiders were hit in their forehead and stood still for a fraction of a second before crashing down on the floor.
Akihiko jumped on the pillar he was hiding behind and climbed up while confirming that the spiders were dead.
When he arrived at the top of the destroyed pillar, he jumped toward a hole in the ceiling of the building and swiftly jumped to another closer house.
As soon as he landed inside through the hole that used to be a window, Akihiko landed right in front of a praying mantis the size of a normal adult.
His feet barely touched the ground before he pulled one of his ninja-tos out.
When he pulled the sword out, however, there was no blade, only the hilt and guard.
However, a pale blue energy with traces of mana was emitted from inside the hilt and it then condensed into a solid-looking dark blue blade in less than a second.
He cut the mantis's head and arms, and before they crashed on the ground, he sheathed his sword, grabbed them mid-air and lay them in the ground before vanishing into the shadows without making a single noise.
For five minutes, he went from building to building and took off the monsters he met, be they on the streets, alleys, or inside the houses.
It was more than what he normally did and he wasn't used to it yet but he managed to adjust himself and eventually picked up his pace and speed up.
As the time marked 15 minutes of their given time, Akihiko finished the last enemy of his section.
He had cleared a whole section all by himself and without any casualty, however, he wasn't happy.
'Too slow and too inconsistent.' – He was unhappy with his performance and judged it to be lacking.
It was the first time he dealt with bugs specifically, so he didn't exactly know how to approach them in an effective way and hence, went for his usual approach. Something that did cost him seconds that eventually amounted to little more than a minute; too much time wasted for him.
Making his way back, he climbed the building the helicopter was on and was welcomed by Evelyn leisurely drinking coffee.
"Oh? You're back already." – She was mildly surprised but also looked at him as if it was already expected – "Coffee?" – She offered while sitting on a chair.
Akihiko shook his head and used his bio-system to say to the others that he was done.
He then took a sit and did four more talismans with strange writings on them and threw them on the ground around him.
He sat down in a lotus position and clasped his hands together before doing some strange hand gestures.
Beneath his armor, on one of his arms, the tattoo that covered the whole arm started to shine in a dim light.
The tattoo was composed of several birds flying over the clouds and a distant sun in the horizon.
Some of the birds depicted in the tattoo glowed and the glow bypassed Akihiko's armor, and became a smoke-like energy that floated in the air.
Akihiko made more hand gestures and the energy then transformed itself into crows wearing a blindfold over their eyes.
The crows took off and flew in different directions with no even the flap of their wings being heard.
Evelyn meanwhile quietly observed his actions while drinking her coffee – 'Assassination, illusions, ninjutsu, and mystical arts… What the hell is he?' – She thought but soon shook her head, it wasn't her business and it didn't really matter anyway.
The crows Akihiko made eventually arrived near where his group was and as they shared his senses, he noticed that they were finishing their sections without any major problems.
The only issue was probably Nyza, Olivia, and Lathz pushing themselves to make up for the mages who were told to not waste their magic.
However, so far so good as no casualty was registered.
Eventually, the 20 minutes were up and the group returned, barely able to complete their goal.
"Not the best but good job, you all." – Evelyn's words certainly didn't help to lift their spirits.
"Thank you, Ms. Evelyn." – Lathz thanked her and gazed at Akihiko – "Thank you too, Akihiko." – She assumed he must have finished with his section, something that clearly got the others' attention but they eventually just accepted and moved on.
Akihiko nodded and then turned to look at a corner of the roof.
There, a magical circle suddenly appeared.
It took a few seconds before energy left the circle and formed a portal floating in the air.
Then, someone stepped out of the portal.
A 6-meter-tall man with bulging muscles wearing a giant spartan-like armor and holding a spear and a shield stopped a few meters away from the group.
Following behind him, were two women, one wearing nun's clothes and the other one wearing knight armor mixed with a combat suit.
"I believe you're Madam Evelyn?" – The man in spartan armor asked with a deep voice.
"Indeed. I thank you all for coming today to help the examinees." – Evelyn performed a short bow – "They have already cleaned the surface, now only the nest is left."
The nun and the woman in knight armor were surprised by this since this was the first time that they heard of examinees being able to do something like this.
"That's good." - The man said before gazing around as if looking for something. A few glances later he spoke – "Indeed, there are no other monsters on the surface aside from around the nest."
Evelyn then clapped her hands, getting everyone's attention – "Now that the seniors are here, you all can enter the nest." – She smiled at Akihiko and the group.
They were obviously stunned by it but when they remembered that bugs kept crawling out of the nest, they understood why the hurry.
And only now they noticed one of the effects of their training. As they were used to a stressful schedule, they weren't as tired as after a day of training, so they had enough energy to still go on for some time.
"Yes, Ms. Evelyn." – After recovering, Lathz answered before going to talk with the seniors along with Melissa and Eric.
They were going to enter a nest for the first time so they wanted some intel first.
Noticing that they were going to spend some time in it, Akihiko put a talisman on the ground and climbed down the building before stealthy moving close to the nest, but not too much. He was going to get rid of the bugs that crawled out and wandered around.
Evelyn saw all of his actions and while his methods were effective, she found his habit of working alone and without warning his team to be more harmful than helpful in the long run.
'I'm sure he will get the hang of it eventually.' – Among all of them, Akihiko was the one she was paying attention the most. He was like a little box of surprises that never gets old.
Something she found interesting and very entertaining.
However, she decided to give his team a little push this time – "You all have a few more minutes to come up with a plan." – The others turned in her direction, confused by her statement – "Akihiko went down to take care of the new ones."
Lathz and the others widened their eyes before hastily looking around, only to notice that Akihiko was nowhere to be seen.
"Now, you've got more time. Start to think how you will do this assault." – Evelyn stated and took another sip of her coffee.
She was anticipating how they would resolve this nest.
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Curiosity:
Akihiko isn't blind but he has a mysterious condition that makes his eyes very light sensitive and have a low image retation, which in turn, makes it basically impossible for him to see things due to the extreme brightness and the lack of any noticeable details when something moves. Even in the night or in dark places, he prefers to just wear a blindfold around his eyes and use his other senses to "see" the world around him.
This condition is also the reason why he uses magic to read things.
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A/N: Hello there, I hope you're having a wonderful day!
My folks, this was the last chapter of this week and I will be back next week with more chapters.
And as this was the last one of this week, I wanted to ask for your feedback. What are your thoughts until now? Do you think the pace is good? Should I tune down some details more? And if yes, which ones? Whatever you think as long as it is with respect.
Give me your feedback so I can try to entertain you more (⌐■_■)
And add this novel to your library if you like it, it already helps me.
Also, about the curiosity thing, I will do 1 curiosity every 4 chapters, a little gift of sorts, so to speak. The curiosities will be minor or interesting things about characters and some points about the world, races, and so on. Things that are not spoilers.
If you are curious about something, you can suggest it to me and if I find it interesting and it isn't a spoiler, I might write the answer in the form of a curiosity.
Well, that's it from me, hope you have enjoyed and see you all next week. Come to hang on the Discord community if you have any questions or just want to talk. The link is on the novel's synopsis.
Peace out~🍷😎